This invention relates to methods and apparatus for scheduling mobile personnel, such as travelling salesmen or repairmen that visit customer sites.
There are many applications that require mobile personnel, also referred to herein as mobile agents, to visit a large number of different sites, which may change from day to day. As can be appreciated, the efficient scheduling of mobile agents has a significant impact on business costs. In particular, it is important to adapt to departures from plan caused by, for example, traffic congestion, by a repair job taking longer than expected, by a customer""s cancellation of a job, or by the discovery that resources other than expected, such as different parts, are required to complete a repair job.
The scheduling of mobile agents is typically performed in advance, with little responsiveness to changing situations. While there are existing passive systems that track mobile agents, any adaptation to the tracking data is performed manually, if at all. For example, one manual approach is exemplified by limousine drivers, who stay in radio contact with a dispatcher who may reschedule them based on their reports. As can be realized, the conventional approaches to the scheduling of mobile agents are less than optimal.
It is a first object and advantage of this invention to provide an improved mobile agent scheduling procedure that overcomes the foregoing and other problems.
It is another object and advantage of this invention for dynamically and adaptively scheduling and rescheduling individual ones of mobile agents to individual ones of jobs.
The foregoing and other problems are overcome and the objects of the invention are realized by methods and apparatus in accordance with embodiments of this invention.
Disclosed is a system and a method for scheduling mobile agents. The system includes a dispatcher and at least one data processor that embodies a scheduling engine. A transceiver is coupled to the dispatcher for performing two-way communication with mobile agents through mobile agent transceivers. The dispatcher is responsive to a reception of a message or signal that is transmitted from a mobile agent for entering the received signal into the scheduling engine. The scheduling engine is responsive to an occurrence of a triggering event and to signals received from mobile agents for recomputing a schedule of activities for a plurality of the mobile agents, and for causing information descriptive of the recomputed schedule to be selectively transmitted to none, one, or more than one of the mobile agents through the transceiver.
The two-way communication can employ, for the mobile agents, radio transmission devices into which text messages may be entered, and upon which text messages may be displayed.
A signal transmitted from the mobile agent may include information for specifying, by example, that the mobile agent has arrived at the location of a next scheduled activity; or that the mobile agent has completed a scheduled activity; or that the mobile agent has failed to complete a scheduled activity; or that the mobile agent is extending a duration of a currently scheduled activity beyond the time scheduled for the termination of the current activity; or that the mobile agent lacks one or more resources needed to complete a current activity; or that the mobile agent lacks one or more skills needed to complete the current activity.
A message transmitted from the dispatcher may include information for specifying at least one of a location and nature of the mobile agent""s next scheduled activity.
Preferably, a particular mobile agent is informed by the dispatcher of a next scheduled activity for that mobile agent on a xe2x80x9cjust-in-timexe2x80x9d basis, that is, just prior to the time that the mobile agent requires the information pertaining to the next scheduled activity.